TOKYO Feb 1 (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial
Group posted a 34.7 percent decline in net profit for
the nine months ended in December as its year-earlier profit was
boosted by a hefty one-time gain from its investment in Morgan
Stanley.

MUFG, which owns a 22 percent stake in the Wall Street bank,
said it earned a net profit of 532.5 billion yen ($5.8 billion)
for the April-December period, down from 815.8 billion yen a
year earlier.

Excluding the impact of the year-earlier special gain,
Japan's largest bank by assets saw its profit lifted by a
year-end rally in the Japanese stock market and growth in
overseas loans. Domestic lending activities remained tepid amid
Japan's weak economic growth.

MUFG kept its full-year net profit forecast at 670 billion
yen, below an average estimate of 685.6 billion yen in a poll of
17 analysts by Thomson Reuters.

Shares of MUFG rose 26 percent in the final three months of
2012, outperforming a 17 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei
average. Prior to the earnings announcement on Friday,
the bank's shares closed down 1.15 percent for the day compared
to a 0.5 percent gain in the Nikkei.